


Asking Questions

by Resevius



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Child Abuse, Childhood Trauma, Dudley Feels, Dudley redeemed, Dumbledore Bashing, Dursleys, F/M, Forgiveness, Gen, Human Dudley, Humorous moments, Later Harry/Severus, M/M, Reconciliation, Therapy, Twelve-Step Recovery, dudley centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-26 23:48:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21587818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Resevius/pseuds/Resevius
Summary: Dudley is learning a lot about himself, the family he thought he knew, and the cousin he's finally speaking about.
Relationships: Dudley Dursley/Original Female Character, Harry Potter/Severus Snape, Ron Weasley/Hermione Granger
Comments: 15
Kudos: 69





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all! I hope you will enjoy this story! Not entirely sure where it's going, but I wanted to write a story about Dudley in recovery with some Harry/Severus thrown in, so hold on for the ride. Please check out the end notes for an important announcement!

Dr. Clark considered the young man seated in front of her. He was broad, easily filling the squashy chair reserved for her clients. His hands rested on the chair's arms, and she reflected that his posture appeared much more relaxed than it had been at their first session.   
"Dudley," she said, "what would you like to talk about today?"   
Dudley's face, oddly striking in its fullness, was blank. If Dr. Claark hadn't been working with him for the past three months, and were she a younger therapist, she might have interpreted the expression as brainless. When Dudley spoke, his voice was determinedly even. "I don't know, Cara. I'm sober. Three months now." He reached into his pocket and produced a small round coin. "They gave me my chip last week." A smile tugged at his mouth.   
"How does that feel?"   
"It feels ... I feel ... proud." He looked directly at her his thumb caressing one side of the coin. "You know, this is the first time I've ... achieved something." He gave a hollow laugh. "Twenty-five years old, and I have a single chip to my name." He looked down for a moment, then smiled at her. "I guess I wanna say thank you, Cara. You've helped me loads."   
"You've worked very hard, Dudley. I'm proud of you, and I'm glad to hear that you're proud, too. Congratulations!"   
"Thank you." He looked back down at the coin, and Dr. Clark could see that his eyes had become distant again. She let the silence exist.   
"I think I started using because of my parents."   
Dr. Clark waited. He had leaned forward ever so slightly, and she mirrored the movement.   
"Food filled me up for the longest time, ever since I was a kid. I ate as much as I liked, and then more. I might have ended up in Overeaters Anonymous instead, but Smeltings, my secondary school, made sure that didn't happen. I started dieting, hard, and boxing when I was fourteen. I still do — diet and exercise, I mean." Pride crept back into his voice. "In all these years, that hasn't changed. I don't box anymore, not since... Well, anyway... A couple years ago, those things stopped filling me up, too. So I gave up on trying to fill myself, and instead tried to just ... forget. To numb. ... It almost killed me."   
Dudley paused again, but his eyes never left the coin. He was spinning it slowly between his fingers.   
"So the drugs were to help you forget," Dr. Clark said.   
"Yes." Dudley looked up again, seeming to remember she was there.   
"Earlier you mentioned your parents. Do you want to tell me more about that?"   
Dudley shrugged. "They were ... loving, I suppose. I never wanted for anything. There was never anything I couldn't have." He tilted his head, frowning.   
"You look upset, Dudley."   
"Yes," he said. "I don't know why. They were good parents. To me, anyway."   
"To you?"   
Dudley's expression became closed. "I'm not supposed to talk about him."   
Dr. Clark frowned. "Him?"   
"Harry." Dudley's body tensed, and his eyes darted.   
"Dudley," Dr. Clark said, "anything you tell me is confidential, even from your parents. Unless you or someone is in danger, nothing you tell me will leave this room."   
Dudley nodded. His spinning of the recovery chip had become faster.   
"I — I haven't talked about Harry in almost eight years. ... He's my mother's sister's son. But my mum would never talk about her sister, she — hated her."   
Dudley's jaw was working furiously.   
"She hated Harry, too. So did my Dad. Harry came to live with us when we were one, after his parents died, but my parents never liked him. You see, Harry was — different. He — wasn't like us. He wasn't — normal."   
Dudley frowned again, this time seeming to look for words.   
"How was Harry different?"   
Dudley looked at her, and Dr. Clark realized that a young boy was gazing at her out of adult eyes. "I don't think I'm ready to explain. I — I still don't really understand it."   
"That's okay," said Dr. Clark. "This is your story, Dudley."   
Dudley gave a small, grateful smile, then bit his lip as he looked back down.   
"My parents gave me anything I wanted, anything at all. But Harry... Harry was always second. Worse than second. They — they treated him horribly."   
Suddenly, Dudley's head snapped up, and he began speaking very quickly, as if to push his words away from him. "When my parents gave me big meals, they gave Harry left over morsals. When I got expensive gifts and treats for my birthday, Harry didn't even get a happy birthday wish. He slept in a cupboard under the stairs. He wore my hand-me-downs, and they were always huge on him! My parents hated him, and they showed it."   
After his admissions, Dudley slumped his shoulders in, looking very much like a turtle retreating to his shell.   
"Thank you for sharing this with me, Dudley," said Dr. Clark. "I can see it was hard. How does it feel to talk about this?"   
"I don't know," Dudley said flatly, then shook his head. His eyes drifted to a chart on Dr. Clark's wall that helped clients identify emotions. "I feel ... angry ... sad ... ashamed. I participated, too. I bullied Harry."   
Dr. Clark kept her eyes on her client, keeping her expression open and neutral.   
"Do you want to tell me more about that?"   
"No," said Dudley, "Not yet. I — I meant to talk about the drugs."   
"All right."   
"I guess I was trying to forget all of that. Harry, the way my parents treated him, the way I treated him. It hurts to remember." He trailed off, and looked at her. "I suppose that was stupid. I'm not very bright, you know?"   
"I don't think so," said Dr. Clark. “A lot of my clients who struggle with addiction have shared similar experiences of using substances to forget. I hear you saying that you turned to drugs to forget something very painful, and I think this is a very understandable survival response.”   
Dudly seemed unsure of how to take that. Deep sadness shown in his eyes.   
“We’re almost out of time, Dudley,” said Dr. Clark. “Would you like to talk about this some more next time?"   
Dudley nodded, looking relieved.   
“In the meantime,” said Dr. Clark, “I want to encourage you to think about yourself as a survivor. Witnessing your parents’ treatment of Harry was painful at best, potentially traumatic. You were surviving then, and I see you continuing to survive.”   
“Thank you, Cara.”   
He left her office, his shoulders still slumped.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! I am so touched at the response to this story! So many bookmarks and kudos! Thanks!

A few days after his appointment with Dr. Clark, Dudley was taking a run around one of his favorite parks in Little Whinging. It was a fair distance from his apartment, but Dudley appreciated the fact that it was rarely crowded, and never hosted his old druggie friends. He concentrated on the thuds of his footsteps on the pavement, keeping his breath even as he jogged. He was supposed to be at his parents' in a couple of hours, and Dudley found that he wasn't looking forward to it.  
Since his "time away", as Vernon and Petunia liked to call his time in rehab, his parents had insisted that he have dinner with them once a week. The night usually found the three Dursleys making small talk around the table: Petunia shared the latest gossip, and Vernon prattled on pompously about his work as director of his department at Grunnings. Dudley would mumble some contribution here and there, but spent most of dinner chewing slowly and politely resisting his mother's offerings of more food. He had never particularly minded the ritual. He knew that his parents worried about him, and he wanted to make sure they were happy. Approaching this week's dinner, however, Dudley was finding himself feeling quite lethargic. Maybe it was the changing season. He'd heard of people becoming depressed when the seasons changed. SAD, they called it.  
Dudley quickened his pace. Bollucks, he thought. The last thing he needed was another condition that made him a freak. Sure, he appreciated Dr. Clark's kindness, but he really didn't need a label. He'd finish the following mandatory four sessions, and that would be it. He was sober, and that is what mattered. He was steady, and he just had to stay that way.  
"Look out!"  
The cry made Dudley let out a hoarse cry and dive sideways. His foot caught the edge of the path, and he tumbled into a clump of bushes. He heard the speedy ticking of a bicycle and a screech as it stopped.  
"Are you okay?"  
Dudley looked up to see a tall woman wearing a ball cap over her dark hair hopping off of her bike and stepping toward him.  
"I'm fine," said Dudley gruffly, quickly hauling himself to his feet. The girl lowered her hand, apparently having been hoping to help. Then she stooped and picked up Dudley's wallet. "You dropped this," she said, holding it out.  
"Thank you," said Dudley, taking it back.  
"Hey," she said suddenly, "you're Dudley Dursley, aren't you?"  
He opened his mouth uncertainly, but she continued.  
"You used to box for Smeltings. I went to Clearing Girls' School, and I used to see you during our dances."  
Dudley wanted to keep running, far away from this situation. This girl had never seen him at dances, she'd seen him lurking outside of them with his thug friends as they heckled and wolf whistled at the girls leaving the dances.  
"I'm Sarah," the girl continued, holding out her hand again, "Sarah Andrews."  
Dudley shrugged and looked pointedly down the path. "Well, I was running."  
Sarah lowered her hand, and frowned. "Yes, I see that. Although you might have noticed by now that you were on the wrong side of the path."  
Dudley opened his mouth again, irritated. His retort caught in his throat when he noticed that her large brown eyes were dancing. "Thanks for letting me know," he said, and turned to go.  
He began running again, his footsteps louder than before. Wrong side of the path! Who made her the freaking path patrol?  
Spurred on by his annoyance and quickened pace, his thoughts returned to his parents. Maybe he should take his own dessert this time. Something small, so he wouldn't be stuck with leftovers. His mother kept insisting that he was losing too much weight.  
Fifteen minutes later, Dudley reached his starting point, and decided to head to his car. He found Sarah Andrews sitting on a bench just inside the path entrance. In spite of himself, he stopped.  
"You haven't been waiting for me, have you?" he said.  
She looked up, closing a book on her finger to mark the page.  
"Oh," said Dudley, "sorry. I didn't realize you were reading here."  
"Quite observant today, aren't you, Mr. Dursley?" she said, her eyes still dancing at him. "What if I said I was waiting for you?"  
He startled. "Um..." was all he could say.  
"Observant and articulate," she giggled.  
"Why would you be waiting for me?" he said.  
"Well, at this rate, it would be to make sure you got home safely."  
Dudley scowled. "You're too kind," he grunted.  
Her face softened. "All right, I'll stop. I know when I'm annoying. I'm waiting for my father. We're going to have dinner tonight."  
Dudley's scowl deepened. "Going to be fun?" he asked.  
"Yes," she nodded, smiling. "My brother is home. It will be nice to see him."  
An unwelcome image popped into Dudley's head. He was sitting at the dinner table with his parents, but instead of Aunt Marge or a work acquaintance, a boy with messy dark hair occupied their fourth seat. Dudley gritted his teeth and forced a polite expression. "Have a good time," he said, and left the park.  
A half hour before dinner that night, Dudley called his mother and informed her that he was catching a cold. He endured her fussing and diagnostics for a few minutes before finally hanging up. He lay on his living room couch, gazing at his television, keeping his mind firmly focused on the mindless content before him. Anything was better than thoughts of the well-stocked vending machine downstairs, the numbers of drug dealers he still knew by heart, or his damned little cousin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi lovely readers. I have not and will not abandon this fic. Just ran into some writers block. Please stick with me, and thanks so much for the amazing response so far!

**Author's Note:**

> I've started a Harry Potter fan fiction podcast!!! Every Monday I read one of my favorite fan fics! This one will be read on Monday, December 2nd, 2019. Please check out my podcast, share, subscribe, and send anything you want to about it to broomsticksandbraillehpff@gmail.com. Look for Broomsticks and Braille on Spottify, or anywhere else you listen to podcasts. The Spottify link is below.   
> https://open.spotify.com/show/2Mamk0eKNBUX8fvEsJkLth


End file.
